Congo to auction oil and gas licenses in endangered gorilla area | Environment

The planned sale included permits in the tropical peat bogs in the northwest of the country. The Congo Basin is the only major rainforest that absorbs more carbon than it emits, and experts have described it as the worst place in the world to search for fossil fuels.

Environmental groups have urged major fossil fuel companies not to let the auction go ahead and said President Felix Tshisekedi should cancel the sale. The rainforest of the Congo Basin extends over six countries and regulates rainfall as far as Egypt.

Speaking to the Guardian, Budimbu acknowledged environmental concerns but defended his country’s right to exploit its natural resources. He said the revenues from the oil and gas projects are needed to protect the Congo Basin and develop the country economically.

“We have a primary responsibility to Congolese taxpayers, who for the most part live in extreme insecurity and poverty, and strive for the socio-economic well-being that oil extraction is likely to provide,” he said. The DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world: nearly three-quarters of its 60 million inhabitants lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2018, according to the World Bank.

Earlier this week, Budimbu told the Financial Times that Hollywood actors Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio spearheaded the protest several years ago and helped halt oil and gas exploration in Virunga after a 2014 Netflix documentary, but said the DRC wouldn’t this time around. can be stopped.

Irene Wabiwa, international project leader for the Congo Forest campaign at Greenpeace Africa, said the auction is at odds with the DRC’s efforts to position itself as a solution country for the climate crisis. “The neocolonial and ever-growing rush for oil and gas in the DRC, which now threatens Virunga National Park, is an eerie example of the rampant obsession to monetize nature,” she said.

Simon Lewis, a climate change professor at University College London and a global expert on the DRC’s peatlands, said the Congo Basin is the worst place in the world to search for oil and gas. “Opening up these forests to oil development will lead to hunting, deforestation, oil pollution, carbon emissions and social conflict. The oil auction will lead to a catastrophe for wildlife, health, climate and human rights,” he said.